8,347
edits
Unusable Enemy Equipment: Difference between revisions
m
no edit summary
m (Mass update links) |
mNo edit summary |
||
| (8 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|''That zombie's got armor! '''I''' want armor!''|'''Coach''', ''[[Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead 2]]''}}
[[File:UnusableEnemyEquipment.png|thumb|250px|Despite clearly visible weapons and armor on this orc's corpse, it has "nothing usable".]]
For whatever reason, the player is not allowed to pick up and use the weapons, ammo, and equipment of fallen enemies. Instead, he must either find the same weapons and equipment lying around by themselves, or simply can't pick up weapons at all outside plot events that give them to him. Often this doesn't extend to ammunition; once the player has a gun, enemies with the same gun may well start dropping ammunition for it. This isn't really as unrealistic as it may seem; knowing where your weapon came from means you can tell it's well-maintained and not booby-trapped or locked out in some way, but it's fairly safe to assume someone who was just shooting at you is carrying ammunition that works in the gun they were carrying.
This is a staple of the [[Stealth Based Game|stealth genre]], and is often [[Hand Wave|hand waved]]/[[Justified Trope|justified]] by the items having fingerprint scanners or some other form of user identification;
In real life, a soldier will be trained to pick up an opponent's weapon only as an absolute last resort. This is because of a laundry list of issues that most fictional depictions skirt around. (A biggy is that when opposing forces are using guns with very different reports, say a US M16 and a Viet Cong AK-47, friendly soldiers will tend to shoot at anything that sounds like the enemy...) In the case of police, weapons owned by criminals are evidence and tampering with them could destroy a later court case. On the other hand, in that absolute last resort when you're out of ammo for your own weapons and surrounded by enemies, it ''will'' feel unreasonable if the game prevents you from picking up the gun from the dead Mook next to you.
Line 26 ⟶ 27:
* ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]: Escape From Butcher Bay'' also does the DNA-gun thing. Enemy guards actually do drop their assault rifles when killed, but the rifle electrocutes you if you try to pick it up. Guards with pistols and shotguns can be freely liberated of their arms once downed, though.
** In ''Assault on Dark Athena'', the rifles are no longer DNA-encoded, which means when you find a merc you can take his weapon no matter what. However, the most commonly encountered enemy, the Ghost Drones, have their rifles surgically attached to their arms. Semi-averted in that you can use their guns while using their body as a meatshield, but this inhibits your ability to move.
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' has several varieties of this.
** ''[[Warhammer
** Which is odd, because Logan Grimnar, head of the Space <s>Vikings</s> Wolves is explicitly stated to use a Daemonic axe he looted from the corpse of a chaos champion, and mastered using only his willpower. Guess the rules don't apply to Chapter Masters.
*** The Space Wolves may as well have their motto be "Screw The Rules." Logan was looked upon as out of his damn mind even by his fellow Space Wolves when he decided to do it, before they realized "holy shit it WORKED."
** ''[[Warhammer
** And then there's the Ork weapons, which only work for them because [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|they actually shouldn't work for
** The Tau also got something for their Battlesuits and Stealthsuits as they have a fail safe system that will fry any human/ork who tries to steal the armor. One guardsman learned it the hard way.
*** And, at least in human case, it would be pointless anyway, as somebody openly using reverse-engineered alien equipment would piss off either Adeptus Mechanicus or Inquisition, or if less lucky both of 'em.
*** As in using it as an [[Improvised Weapon]] and blasting the enemy before dumping it off a bridge or a cliff or some sort of crushing. But salvaging enemy weapons as your own is pretty difficult for a human for any race. Ork weapons are explained above, Eldar weapons are psychically controlled even for something as simple as a Shuriken Catapult, Tyranid and Necron weapons are pretty self explanatory, this is Tau's way of handwaving why stealing their weapons don't work.
** In ''[[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]]'' series it may be impossible to use things for several reasons - organizational (for the Imperial people, using xenos toys usually invites suspicion in heresy, and/or being disliked by Cult Mechanicus), anatomical (if it was not designed for human-sized creatures with two hands, can you even hold it right?), technical (there are security measures, typically genelock, and unless you are an intended user you'll have to bypass or remove them before using equipment in question), to bizarre (Ork-made gadgets and weapons work reasonably well only for Orks). And, of course, [[Demonic Possession]]. Especially gene-locks are abound.
*** In ''[[Rogue Trader]]'' [[Loyal Phlebotinum|"Loyalty Spirit"]] is even available as a separate weapon upgrade.
* In the ''[[Splinter Cell]]'' series, Sam Fisher, for whatever reason, can't use the guns of fallen enemies. For ammo and weapons, he must find them laying around by themselves. This becomes ridiculous in the Xbox version of ''Double Agent'', where at one point a choice made earlier in the game can net Sam a pistol carried by a guard... but it is impossible to take the pistols from any other guards!
** This was lampshaded at one point in ''Chaos Theory'', where Sam can find an email yelling at a [[Mook]] for ordering the wrong ammunition, that only Sam can use. By extension somewhat [[Justified Trope|justifying]] the trope, given that all the weapons shown are modeled on real weapons, very few of the enemies would carry ammunition for the weapons Sam uses. Also, no one in their right mind would trade a FN F2000 with suppressor and grenade launcher (specially designed for firing less-lethal rounds) for a terrorist's AK-47.
** Averted in ''Conviction'', where Sam can freely take weapons from fallen enemies.
* In ''Gothic'' players can always take and use the weapons of defeated enemies (even huge orc-axes), but never their armor. This leads to the best armor from the Old Camp being inaccessible. There are plot reasons why you'd never normally get it, but still...
** It is interesting to note that you can't ''get'' the armor, but you could definitely ''wear'' it, if you got it through other means (by using cheats, for example). Every armor on every human enemy is an actual, wearable item with its own
*** This was changed in the sequel, where this and some other kinds of "armor" don't actually exist as separate objects anymore.
* ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2'' features an aspect of this trope. Late in the game one will get access to an experimental rifle that fires small explosive rockets. This features a trigger mechanism that reads the fingerprint of the first person to use it and then limits its use to that person. Said mechanism can be reset by a [[Player Character|PC]] or [[Non-Player Character|NPC]] with sufficient skill in electronics.
** The beginning of the game was also made artificially harder by the fact that, while your mercs started out with peashooters, the enemy [[Red Shirt
*** ...But even weapons that enemies actually drop aren't immediately useful due to their poor condition. Most weapons you find will be down to 70% or 80% condition and thus very likely to jam, so either [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|poor item condition doesn't effect enemies]] or [[Fake Difficulty|just tumbling to the ground causes major damage to items]].
** One of the ways to get around this was to literally [[Video Game Stealing|STEAL the equipment]] from a desired enemy by using one of your more stealthy mercs to sneak up on the enemy, loot him, and run.
Line 52 ⟶ 56:
**** It was possible at one point to snipe an elite before he got into his wraith. You still couldn't drive it though. {{spoiler|Unless you hacked, also revealing it to have the same crosshair as the rocket launcher.}}
** In story the Elites will rather fight bare handed rather than used a loaded human weapon right next to them.
* This is also present in so many video game [[Role
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' games: Since ''Morrowind'', you can access an enemy's inventory and take all of their equipment, including their weapons, armor and ammunition. You can even loot some of the arrows you shot at them! Some enemies, however, show equipment on their models that is not actually in-game equipment and therefore cannot be looted.
** Every single piece of enemy equipment in ''[[Titan Quest]]'' is a usable item. If they have a shiny weapon, you will get it. However, most pieces are far below normal quality.
** ''[[Vagrant Story]]'' shoves this in your face, painfully. You can actually see each individual piece of equipment that each enemy has equipped, but you have only a tiny chance of any piece of that equipment being a [[Random Drop]] and hence obtainable. The game doesn't attempt to explain this.
Line 67 ⟶ 71:
** The ''Opposing Force'' [[Expansion Pack]] takes this a step further, as you eventually get to use ''[[Living Weapon|live aliens]]'' as weapons.
* ''[[Shining Force]] 2'' has a few bosses that can drop items. These items can't be equipped, but one of them can be used to cast spells.
* Avoided entirely in ''[[Nethack]]'': if an enemy is using an item, you can loot it off their corpse when they die. But they ''don't'' all leave corpses
* This is present to some extent in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', where most weapons and armor (especially blasters) cannot be collected, but ancillary items (medpacks, stims, grenades, etc.) are commonplace drops. Since loot is randomized, this makes sense, but it also leads to the odd situation of an enemy dropping an item he isn't even carrying, such as Dark Jedi dropping a blaster rifle. Boss battles are a major exception to this trend, but this is the case sometimes even then (e.g. the Sith governor of Taris wields a double-[[Vibroweapon|vibroblade]] that can't be scrounged).
* In the ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'' games, you can get ammunition, ordnance, medical supplies, money, and other equipment off of dead enemies... but ''never'' weapons or shields.
* In the ''[[X-COM]]'' series, all equipment used by the aliens will show up as an 'Alien artifact' and will be unusable. It is still possible to interact with these items... usually by accidentally blowing them up, which prevents you from looting them post-battle. After researching the specific weapons/items, you will then be allowed to outfit your squad with those weapons in addition to looting them off the corpses of your enemies. This is basically how you "level up" your weapons as you precede through the game.
Line 79 ⟶ 83:
*** And you get the Gale Boomerang and Ball and Chain from beating the two minibosses that use them.
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword|Skyward Sword]]'' plays with this trope a bit. In the fourth dungeon, Ancient Cistern, you obtain a whip which allows you to retrieve items from afar. Unfortunately, it can't temporarily snag weapons from enemies, instead only stealing Monster Horns (for upgrading your equipment) from certain Bokoblins. Later on, the boss of Ancient Cistern ({{spoiler|Koloktos}}) must be defeated by {{spoiler|disabling its limbs, which allows you to pick up one of its [[BFS|swords]] (which are able to ''smash through pillars'') and go buck wild on it. Unfortunately, you can't take the sword with you outside of the boss room.}}
*** And then there's a case of a boss reversing this trope ''on the player'', [["Wake
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has a notable quest where you need to collect weapons from specific monsters (which you could actually use, if you so wish), but as with all quest drops, the chance to get one is far lower than you'd expect. In fact, the chance of another weapon is higher.
** Related are the [[Twenty Bear Asses|boars that don't have livers]].
Line 90 ⟶ 94:
** If you cheat to get them, they will usually still work, the most notable one is the final bosses magic book in ''FE7'' which would let anyone use magic. Nils could actually do damage!
** This trope is justified with ''[[Fire Emblem]]'''s beast enemies. In these cases, the "weapons" are fangs, claws, or other parts of the beasts' anatomy.
*** Although in ''[[Fire Emblem:
* In ''Resistance: Fall of Man'' you can't get the fireball shooters used by Chimeran Titans when they die. Justified twice over, as said guns are as big as you are... and Titans die when their cooling units overload and explode, blowing them apart. It similarly justifies not being able to get the weapon Slipskulls use from their corpses by having it [[Arm Cannon|mounted onto their arm]] with metal bands. There's no obvious reason the Arc Cannon can't be recovered from Hardfang corpses,
** In the game's [[New Game+]] mode, both the Slipskull weapons and the Arc Cannon are available to the player, alongside a couple of fancy new pieces of kit that you had no way of knowing existed. Of course, it might have been helpful to actually tell the player this at some point...
* There was oh so much stuff lying in the background of the ''[[Resident Evil]]'' series. Most notably, you find a squad of dead soldiers in the sewers of ''RE2'' with MP5s you cannot claim. Also, doesn't it seem odd that none of the hundreds of zombified police officers are carrying their sidearms or ammunition?
Line 98 ⟶ 102:
** In ''Separate Ways'', Ada ''does'' eventually get the option of buying one of the crossbows that the enemies are always using on you.
*** With some [[Made of Explodium|slight alterations.]]
** Face it: {{spoiler|Wesker's Samurai Edge}} would've been a nice spoil of war after facing {{spoiler|him}} so many times in ''5''.
* ''[[Ghost Recon]]'' lets you choose a set of weapons at mission start, but you can't use the weapons your enemies drop after you kill them. In ''[[Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter|Advanced Warfighter]]'', you can at least scavenge the ammo out of them if they're the same caliber as one of your weapons.
* Flash RPG ''[[MARDEK]]'' is released intermittently in chapter format, with items and stats impressively being carried over from chapter to chapter. Unfortunately,chapter 2 stacks you with staffs - Unusable ''Friendly'' Equipment because no one in the act can actually use staffs, no matter how good they are.
Line 106 ⟶ 110:
* A common staple in ''[[Nippon Ichi]]'' games, though considering everyone and their grandmother (sometimes coming up as a storypoint even) is portrayed as having [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|Cthulhu-sacking]] prowess, it's generally accepted they simply annihilated the other person's equipment [[Everything Fades|along with the entirety of the enemy]]. Which doesn't explain how it comes back when you get them revived at the hospital, but there you go. If you see something you like, you must either steal it with a special item (it doesn't have to be used by a thief, but it's much harder otherwise) or capture the enemy and take the items away.
** The ''[[Disgaea]]'' games in particular have Geo Panels that can clone your characters - the clones are hostile and replicate the original ''exactly'', down to the equipment. It is impossible to steal their equipment even with the specialty items listed above, and only a weapon in the third iteration has the potential to knock only one of those items off the enemy when they do die to it; if you could freely steal equipment from the enemy, it would (much sooner than usual) [[Game Breaker|snap the game in half]].
* ''[[Wizardry]]'' games shows names of opponents' weapons, but those are just strings,
* The ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' series was notorious for this trope. Even if you were equipped with only a dagger and leather armor, and you just killed dozens of enemies carrying scimitars, spears, maces, scale mail, shields, ball and chains, etc. they would invariably be too 'damaged' or 'worthless' for you to pick up, if the game even acknowledged their existence in the first place.
* ''Megaman Zero 4'' averted this. Zero's new weapon, the Z-Knuckle, is some kind of energized hand attachment which enables him to literally tear weapons off of enemies and use them himself. There's a huge variety of weapons and gadgets he can steal this way, but he can only use one at a time, and most of the projectile weapons have limited ammo (which a certain upgrade part can regenerate).
* ''[[
** Played completely straight by Rogue Drones, which only ever drop crafting materials, and [[Demonic Spiders|The Sleepers]] who never drop their overpowered armor plating, missiles, or beam cannons.
* In ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', weapons dropped by enemies act like medium-size ammo boxes, giving you 50% ammo, 100 metal (Engineers), and 50% cloak (Spies). The exception to this is the Heavy's Sandvich, which restores health to the person that picks it up, the Scout's baseball, which can be used by other Scouts, and the Engineer's toolbox, which fills ammo completely.
** However, you cannot actually obtain the items collected this way, as in have them in your inventory. While the weapon drop system renders this a non-issue, it would break the fandom apart if you could get a hat by simply collecting it off of a corpse. The game does make one exception though: killing someone currently wearing a Ghastly Gibus or any of it's variants would grant you a Gibus of your own, if you do not already own one.
* [[4X]] game series ''Space Empires'', and possibly other games that use tech trees, allows you to capture enemy ships and study them for new tech. However if they have Ancient Ruins, or Racial, technology you can't use it because only empires with that tech tree have access to it. If you're lucky you might have found those ruins as well or are the same sort of race.
* Averted very, very well in the PC game ''[[Siege of Avalon]]''. You can strip dead enemies down to their underwear (and sometimes take that too, though this doesn't change the dead enemy model having underwear) if you feel like it, though actually carrying that equipment in your bag can be problematic due to a bag of limited size and only being able to wear so much stuff at once. The same items can be thrown on the ground (and stay there until you come back for them!) if you decide you don't actually want them, but they can't be put back on the corpses. Unfortunately. That could have been funny, dressing up a dead enemy whose people are on a religious rampage against everything your people have touched in your old clothes and a silly hat...
Line 124 ⟶ 127:
* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'': You can't pick up the guns from enemies, you must wait for the weapons to show up lying around on their own somewhere. Once you do find one, however, [[Enough to Go Around|every character capable of using it gets their own copy]].
** In the PC version, you can mod the ini file to make enemy drop their weapon (noticeably the Heavy Machinegun from enemy Guard Mech), but the weapon will disappear after a while, in your hands, even if you are in the middle of using it to blast at enemies. It's also [[Game Breaking Bug|an incomplete and incredibly buggy feature]], so enable it at your own peril. The YMIR gun is [[Awesome but Impractical]], and most of the other guns aren't worth picking up.
* In ''[[Dungeons
** In 2nd Edition D&D the magic weapons of the Drow (underground evil elves) turn to dust after being exposed to sunlight. Drow equipment based on radiation magic works just like magically enhanced items, but neither needs to be actually enspelled nor can be disenchanted as common variety. This disintegration doesn't bother Drow themselves, as they raid surface rarely and only at night anyway.
** In 3.5ed, PCs, especially Rogues and Bards can train the "[http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/useMagicDevice.htm Use Magic Device]" skill and [[Bellisario's Maxim|somehow]] use it to fake an alignment... or race... or [[Feigning Intelligence|class]]. Making such gear merely difficult to use.
** On the other hand magical equipment in D&D generally tends to grow or shrink to fit the wearer "from halfling to ogre size", effectively eliminating the most realistic reason for a player being unable to use enemy equipment.
** And now, in 4th Edition, holy
*** Although this seems to be at best a matter of personal taste more than an actual instance of this
*** In cases where it came up in my game, the party just happened to know about a simple ritual that swapped holy symbol properties.
* In
* Generally averted in ''[[Borderlands]]''. Not every enemy drops their gun, but it IS a common occurrence. As each gun has many randomly generated elements, and some rare guns have distinct effects, you can get a hint or even know outright what weapon the enemy will drop when you kill them. Characters cannot equip armor (Besides a personal energy shield, which DO drop from every shielded enemy) however, and therefore you can never take the armor worn by enemies such as the Crimson Lance.
* In ''[[Pitfall]] The Lost Expedition'', Harry passes by crates full of TNT throughout the game and is assaulted by enemies that throw it. You cannot use it yourself until a friendly character hands you some during a cutscene late in the game.
Line 137 ⟶ 140:
* In ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' games, neither Altaïr nor Ezio can use the bows archers drop. ''Brotherhood'' continues the proud tradition with the new crossbow- and arquesbus-users, though you can loot their ammo for Ezio's use.
** On the other hand, you can snatch enemy melee weapons almost at will. While usually their weapons aren't anything special, spears can be thrown and be used to disable large groups of enemies with a singe spin.
* ''[[Scarface the World Is Yours]]''. A 'boss' in the last level can and will spam you with rockets if you have bad luck. Once you nuetralize him, only one rocket is available for use despite the territory you must cover from then on. In the majority of the game, weapons can be looted and tossed in the back of special cars. See how many chainsaws you can collect?
* In ''[[Resonance of Fate]]'', you can't pick up any of the guns from dead human enemies. You'd probably want
* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' and its sequels, loot is randomized and somewhat rare. This means that you cannot take the blasters the enemy was just using against you. More ridiculously, it also means that an enemy may drop an item they obviously aren't even carry, such as Dark Jedi dropping blaster rifles.
* Averted to a degree in ''[[Deus Ex]]''. The game seems to be inconsistent at times about whether the guy you just stunned/kill will drop ammunition or grenades, for example, but almost everyone and their dog seems to have spare combat knives on hand, whether or not they pulled one on you. Very rarely do you get to actually scavenge a proper firearm, at least early on.
* Mostly averted in ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'', as many beastmen that you fight use weapons and shields that actually have the same texture models as player-usable equipment. On the other hand, some beastmen dropped items, such as the Quadav Helm, explicitly say that playable characters cannot wear them, and are generally either used for [[Twenty Bear Asses]] quests or for synthesis materials.
* Played straight in [[Rainbow Six]] (or at least the earlier games), although justified. In addition to practical reasons listed above, most missions require suppressed weapons, which the bad guys rarely have. No ammo drops either, as enemies rarely use the same ammo, and when they do, it's generally a non-compatible magazine style. Annoyingly, (unless I'm mistaken) you can't get ammo off from your fallen comrades either, even if they are using the same weapons. Made slightly more annoying since there are no [[One Bullet Clips]].
* Some ''[[Monster Rancher]]'' games have unusuable enemy ''monsters.'' In ''2,'' there was a series of wild monsters whom you could fight and obtain cards for, but never own. In ''4,'' in addition to your [[
* The playable characters in [[Undercover Cops]] cannot wield knives, bottles, bats, or axes. This is kinda justified considering they can all shoot energy beams and wield weapons 2 or 3 times their size.
* The World War II ''[[Medal of Honor]]'' games, such as ''[[Medal Of Honor Frontline]]'', prevent the player from picking up weapons from enemies. This is usually for gameplay purposes: the player would either have no need for the weapon (like a K98 bolt-action rifle) because superior ones are available in large numbers, or the enemies all carry the same guns as the player and simply provide ammo. However, almost all enemies will still drop ammunition for American weapons, suggestion that either the M1 Garand is able to chamber both .30-06 and 7.92mm Mauser, or that the K98s are all loaded with .30-06 rounds.
* A non-videogame example is the [[Impossibly Cool Weapon|Lawgiver]] from ''[[Judge Dredd]]''. The gun is encoded to fire only when its registered user pulls the trigger. Any attempts by anyone else results in the [[An Arm and a Leg|loss of a limb]] by way of a [[Stuff Blowing Up|small explosive charge]]. Of course, it is possible to override this function in an emergency, as Senior Judges have access to instructions on how to do this.▼
* In ''[[Minecraft]]'', Zombie Pigmen's gold swords and Skeleton's bows would once never drop upon their deaths. The 1.2 patch made these items Rare Drops, with a chance for these weapons being enchanted.
* ''[[White Knight Chronicles]]'' and its sequel revolve around a quintet of five [[McGuffin|20 foot-tall suits of living armor]] known as Incorrupti. Each Incorruptus has its own human
* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' got Boarding Pods and the ability to capture enemy ships in an [[Expansion Pack]]. But the captured ships will inexplicably vanish after the battle is over so you can't use their (possibly superior) technology.
* One of the more interesting [[Real Life]] examples was the Russian habit of deliberately building railroads at a different guage then the rest of Europe. This was to prevent them being used by invaders.
* As pictured ''[[The Elder Scrolls: Arena]]'' falls into this, with only "human" enemies dropping equipment and even these drop don't match the items they were depicted as using. It is however averted from ''[[The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall]]'' onward.
▲* A non-videogame example is the [[Impossibly Cool Weapon|Lawgiver]] from ''[[Judge Dredd]]''. The gun is encoded to fire only when its registered user pulls the trigger. Any attempts by anyone else results in the [[An Arm and a Leg|loss of a limb]] by way of a [[Stuff Blowing Up|small explosive charge]]. Of course, it is possible to override this function in an emergency, as Senior Judges have access to instructions on how to do this.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]
[[Category:
| |||